Amorphous selenium, a composite material consisting of a CdS powder and an organic binder, and an organic photoconductive member have heretofore been used as electrophotographic members. In recent years, attention has been given to hydrogenated or halogenated amorphous silicon that works as a photoconductive material having a high resistance. Compared with the conventional photoconductive materials for electrophotography, this material exhibits a high photo response in the range of visible light, increased hardness and decreased toxicity, and is considered to be close to an ideal electrophotographic member. However, this material does not exhibit sharp photo response over a range of 780 to 800 nm where the wavelengths of light emitted by a semiconductor laser fall. Therefore, it has been desired to increase the sensitivity of this material for the light of wavelengths that lie over this region.
The art which uses amorphous silicon as the photosensitive film has been reported in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 78135/1979, and the structure which uses amorphous silicon as a photosensitive base film to exhibit a high sensitivity for the light of long wavelengths has been reported in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 146142/1981.